Garage Door Springs

Garage door springs counterbalance the weight of the door to make it easy to open and close. They serve the same purpose of counter weights used to balance doors in centuries past and in many doors today. For example, if a garage door weighs 100 pounds, a spring force of 100 pounds needs to pull against the weight of the door. This can be accomplished with springs that either stretch or torque special parts to assist in balancing the door.

To safely repair garage doors it's necessary to understand the forces at work. In this video you'll learn how the door system is counterbalanced allowing the springs to offset the weight of the door throughout the doors travel.

If your garage door has a broken EZ Set spring, you have two basic options for restoring your door to its previous working order. The simpler and safer option is to keep your EZ-Set system. The other is to convert to the Standard Torsion Spring system.

Wayne Dalton's TorqueMaster spring system uses unique hardware. The track radius is smaller than on most other doors, the cable drums are smaller, and the shaft has a unique shape. The torsion springs, instead of sliding over the shaft, fit inside the shaft.

Extension springs have four characteristics: length, inside diameter, wire size, and type of end. Even though springs have these properties, manufacturers generally do not make their extension springs based on the dimensions you may find on your door. Every manufacturer has its own design for making springs.

There are two main styles of one-piece springs. The first is the standard spring. This spring is used by a variety of door manufacturers. If the top of your door has rollers that move along a metal track that extends horizontally toward the back of your garage, you have standard one-piece springs.

Commercial and industrial overhead doors range from weighing a few hundred pounds to over a thousand pounds. Vertical-lift and high-lift door systems are frequently used in commercial and industrial settings to maximize space. Read below measure your old spring(s) and find your new torsion springs to purchase.

Self-storage roll-up doors operate in a similar manner to steel-rolling door springs. Like a steel rolling door, the curtain on these doors wraps around itself as the door opens. The primary difference, however, is that steel rolling doors are made of interlocking slats, while self-storage roll-up doors are just one piece of steel. While steel rolling doors are typically found in heavier commercial and industrial environments, self-storage roll-up doors are common in self-storage facilities.

The torsion springs on steel rolling doors work the same way as other torsion springs in the garage door industry. When the door is closed, the spring is wound. The spring is secured to a spring anchor bracket on one end and to the shaft on the other. When the steel rolling door opens, the spring in the barrel supports most of the door weight. The remainder of this weight is lifted by the chain hoist or the operator.

Measuring garage door torsion springs is precise, technical work. It often stumps experienced machinists, engineers, and garage door service technicians. In the door business, we often make mistakes ordering springs. The standard joke is that we'll use them as boat anchors, but you may not have a boat! Click to learn how to avoid ordering a boat anchor.

The main reason is to maximize cycle life. Unmatched springs will usually have one with a shorter cycle life that will break first. If both springs are replaced at the same time, the remaining cycles in the unbroken spring will go unused.

The purpose of this tutorial is to show how to install a standard garage door torsion spring assembly on a new garage door, or on a door that previously used a extension springs, torquemaster springs, or EZ-Set torsion springs.

Are you mechanically challenged? Order your springs with cones. But if you enjoy the challenge and adventure of something new, you can remove the cones from your old springs and use them on your new springs. You'll discover that removing cones from garage door springs can be quite easy. You can give it a try before ordering.

Do you have a sectional overhead garage door that uses extension springs? Did one of your springs break? Follow the steps in our easy tutorial to replace your extension springs to get your door running again.

Replacing EZ-Set torsion springs is different from replacing standard torsion springs. The hardware is different. Parts are mounted differently and major problems can occur if they are not mounted properly.

The following instructions can be followed by most do-it-yourselfers. You will need a second person to help you at the beginning of this tutorial to raise the door so that you can replace your torsion springs. These instructions are for replacing two springs on a self-storage roll-up door, also known as a mini-warehouse curtain door, that have the typical self-storage style loops on each end of the springs.

The following tutorial is for experienced maintenance personnel only. These instructions walk you through replacing both the inside and outside springs of a duplex assembly system on commercial and industrial overhead doors. This tutorial involves a pair of duplex assemblies on a high-lift system.

Commercial Torsion Spring Replacement

I began learning the garage door trade in the Chicago blizzard of 1979. One of the more challenging jobs was replacing four huge 6" I.D. torsion springs on large 22X14 sectional overhead garage doors.

Garage Door Spring Conversion

Do you want to convert over to standard torsion springs from your EZ-Set springs? Use this tutorial in conjunction with our Torsion Spring Replacement (Two Springs) tutorial to swap out your two EZ-Set springs.

Discover the risks of using only one torsion spring on your garage door, and see the benefits of using two springs. Included are instructions to help guide you through our torsion spring replacement tutorials. We also provide you with the necessary tools to help you decide what parts you need and which springs to purchase.

In the early days of the garage door industry, every manufacturer stamped, rolled, molded, cut, and fastened its own hardware. None of the torsion spring parts on Crawford garage doors are standard except for the 1" O.D. shaft. It's a little extra work to convert but the results will be worth the effort.

Garage Door Repair

I remember one DIYer who removed his whole garage door trying to reinstall one of the cables. You can follow a simple procedure to avoid the DIYer's mistake. In fact, this can be one of the quickest repairs. I can usually do it while holding my breath. It irks the customer because of the service fee. Take a hint from the pros.

Does your garage door close part way then reopen? Does the door bind and stick? Are there scraping sounds as your door opens and closes? In my 30 years servicing garage doors I have found these symptoms to be some of the more challenging for do-it-yourselfers to diagnose. One major cause of failure for garage doors using extension springs is that the pulleys wear out.

It's late Saturday morning. Your coffee's cold. You're half way finished replacing your garage door torsion springs and you just discovered your end bearing is shot. Or, you've greased every moving part of your door and you still have this loud annoying squeak. And then you find this seized bearing. No problem! This can wait.

Sometimes customers prefer to keep the same end bearing plate and replace only the bearings. With just a few parts found in many garages you can keep that older, heavier end bearing plate and replace only the bearings.

Garage door struts reinforce door sections, preventing them from bending or breaking. They also aid in the smooth opening and closing of the door. If the sections are not rigid, the garage door will bind as it opens and closes.

Of all the sections in garage doors, the bottom one needs to be replaced most often. Since this section is closest to the garage floor, it absorps the most amount of water and is eaten more frequently by little critters.

Does your garage door squeak or make a lot of noise when opening? There are some specific ways to help reduce the squeaking of your garage door. Many people will lubricate everything, but that actually can cause damage and a huge mess. There are some specific things that you can lubricate to help maintain the life of your garage door and reduce noise levels. This video explains how to lubricate your garage door to reduce noise and increase the life of your garage door.

The following instructions for converting your garage door to a vertical lift system are written only for the confident mechanic. The task is more complex than installing a garage door from start to finish. The average "diy-er" should not attempt this.

Garage Door Low Headroom

Do you have a very small amount of space to work with above the top of your garage door? Is your garage ceiling too short to fit your steel garage door normally? This tutorial will explain how to make a low-headroom modification to the brackets for steel garage doors. This will allow a door to operate with a headroom clearance between 9 and 12 inches.

Garage Door Opener Repair

Adjusting your garage door opener can be quite confusing for someone who has never adjusted them. This video will explain to you how to adjust the lifting and dropping force of the door as well as how to adjust the maximum height and minimum height of your door.

When the lay-person typically sees a circuit board, they immediately seize up and think that's it's too advanced for them to fix. In reality, replacing circuit boards for the Chamberlain Liftmaster, Sears, and Craftsman garage door openers is relatively easy with proper instruction. This video will walk you through the process of replacing the circuit board on a Chamberlain Liftmaster, Sears, and Craftsman garage door opener.

If the motor on your Genie opener is working but the screw won't turn and the door won't open the issue may be a damaged screw drive coupler. To learn how to replace the coupler check out this tutorial.

In this video we'll show you how to repair a genie opener that was not properly assembled and has become damaged. We'll also show you how to check a functioning Genie opener to ensure that an often overlooked piece was properly installed.

The first step in learning how to service dock levers is understanding how they work. In this video we'll cover the primary operating mechanisms used by dock levelers. This includes both the general design as well as the specific lifting mechanisms which fall into three categories: Mechanical, Hydraulic, and Pneumatic.

Dock Leveler Repair

The following safety instructions are intended to help provide proper safety guidelines for working on any dock leveler. Like any mechanical piece of equipment, if the proper precautions aren't taken, serious injuries or death may occur.

Most mechanical dock levelers use snubber mechanisms to lift the lips as they are raised, and they close slowly as shocks absorb the weight of the lip. In many of the Kelley dock levelers, however, a push bar and a yieldable rod are connected to a link assembly so that when the deck is raised the push bar drops down. Then, as someone walks across to the outside of the dock leveler, the plate on the push bar catches on the middle bolt allowing the push bar to raise the lip..

In most Rite-Hite dock levelers, a ring rolls in the curve of a lip keeper as someone walks across the deck of the dock leveler. This allows the lip assist bar attached to the ring to push the lip up.
Over time, the bar connecting the ring and the lip assist bar wears out, and the ring is unable to stay on the track of the lip keeper.This indirectly prevents the lip from raising when someone pulls the pull chain.
This tutorial demonstrates how to properly replace a worn lip assist bar in a Rite-Hite dock leveler.

In most Kelley dock levelers, a hold down housing stores a ratchet bar that locks to the bottom of the deck and keeps it closed. As someone pulls the release chain on the deck, the ratchet bar unlocks and extends, allowing the dock leveler to open.

When a Serco hold down unit ceases to function it may not need to be fully replaced. Instead you can disassemble the unit and replace the damaged components. This can save time eliminating the need to remove the housing, grinding, welding and installing a new unit.